UK’s crusade against free speech is starting to look like it’s increasingly turning the police into a political tool – which would be wholly incompatible with any democracy.
Other than suppressing speech, these practices waste valuable police time and resources in a country experiencing soaring crime rates.
The latest story about officers showing up at people’s doors for expressing their lawful opinions online concerns 54-year-old Helen Jones, who recently posted messages critical of the ruling Labour on Facebook, only to have police at her home 48 hours later.
Jones was prompted by a scandal involving Labour councilors and MPs, including Health Minister Andrew Gwynne, who has been forced to resign since the story of their exchanges in a WhatsApp app group broke out.
In one message, Gwynne expressed that he wished an elderly woman who did not vote for Labour would die before the next election.
Jones took to two Facebook groups – one closed and another public – to call for Stockport Labour Councilor David Sedgwick to resign. Sedgwick was the one who shared a letter written by the pensioner, which elicited what some reports refer to as Gwynne’s “vile comments.”
In one her posts Jones said of Councillor Sedgwick: “Let’s hope he does the decent thing and resigns. I somehow think his ego won’t allow it.”
She also wrote, in another post: “Not looking good for Cllr Sedgwick!!!”
Jones – who is a school administrator, and was taking care of her baby grandchild in a house close by, when the police knocked on her door – was later told over the phone that there was a complaint against her.
“Someone has spoken to us about your social media posts,” one of the officers said without explicitly disclosing who (this appears to have been one of the “Non-Crime Hate Incident” reports).
Jones wanted to know if she had broken the law, or would be if she continued to post similar content against the “advice” the police were giving her.
The answer was no, and no – and when Jones wanted to know, what they intended to do about all this, the response was, “There’s not a lot we can do, we are just giving you advice.”
This was taken by Jones, and a number of opposition politicians and rights activists as no more than an intimidation technique.
“It was actually quite scary. It made me think I best just keep quiet for the rest of my life, because you just can’t say anything these days,” she told the press.
The police claim that they were “under a duty to inform her that she is the subject of a complaint” – but some observers say there is no legal obligation to do this unless a formal investigation had been launched.
